Medical data collected in a diagnostic imaging device, such as an X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, are subjected to various data processing tasks and analyses for the purpose of conducting diagnoses. Taking as an example the case where three-dimensional (3D) image data are collected, the image data are subjected to image processing for generating two-dimensional (2D) image data for display. Such 2D image data includes maximum intensity projection (MIP) image data, multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) image data or volume rendering (VR) image data. Further, processing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), frequency spectra can be obtained.
Medical data are processed and analyzed using processing/analysis software, such as dedicated data processing software or data analysis software run on computers. Such processing/analysis software is often provided with a function of storing a work status of the processing/analysis software as a data file and reproducing the work status of the processing/analysis software at the storage time point by referring to the stored work status data.
For example, image analysis software, when it is used as the processing/analysis software, is able to store a work status as a single work status data file and reproduce the same work status. In this case, the work status includes identification information, image processing conditions, data resulting from processing and display status of the image data subjected to image processing.
Normally, the results of data processing or data analysis of medical data are stored in a database. For example, the MIP image data or VR image data generated through image processing are stored in an image database. When frequency spectrum is collected through MRS, numerical data of the frequency spectrum is added to medical image data as additional information, for storage in the medical information database. The medical image data are composed of pixel data for displaying the frequency spectrum in the form of a graph.
The medical data stored in the image database can be displayed in a list using browsing software. Then, desired image data can be selected from the displayed list of image data and transmitted to medical equipment, such as a medical image processor or a medical image server, via a network, using image transmission software.